ACI 1 «Основные учения буддизма», занятие 6

Class 6: Principal of Karma; 6 Problems of Human Life
7/26/93
61a.txt
transcribed by: Louise Rosenthal

Get ready [unclear] {le} [repeat], {ni-epa} [repeat], {le} [repeat], {hell chewa}
[repeat], {le} [repeat], {ma chepa dong} [repeat], {mi chepa} [repeat], {chepa}
[repeat], {chu mi tsowa} [repeat] I'm gonna add an 'a' here.

[student: Page fifty-four? ]

It's, it's on page thirty four but it's a little spread out.

[student: Oh.]

It doesn't quite look like that. Okay, um...we had last, we talked last week about
desire for this life, all right? Renunciation is the...medicine for desire for this life.
And, there were two kinds of meditations you could do, two {lam rim}s about
desire for this life that would stop it, do you remember what they are? [unclear]

[student: Yeah, the first one is the um, great importance of this life of leisure and
fortune and the difficulty of finding it and the second one is the um, is
impermanence, the fact that we all must, the fact that we must die.]

Yeah, okay. So we covered last week...we talked about having desire for this life
and we covered the two {lam rim}s that are supposed to stop it. The first one is
to think how lucky y'are to be alive, to have a brain, not be too old yet, or, at
least, not almost too old, in my case [laughs]. No. You're still not too old to
think straight, ah, y'still have some freshness of your thinking and, healthy...and
a, then the second one was if you meditate on your path you obviously... you
will try to do some dharma, you'll be less attached to this life because what we
call this life is all irrelevant thirty seconds after you die, you won't care about a
single thing in this life thirty seconds after you die, you won't..nothing in this
whole life will affect you thirty seconds after you die. Except for what you learn
here [unclear]. Nothing else will be of any use to you. That's this li...you know
desire for this life is that. And it's easy to give up because it's meaningless, you
know what I mean? It's not like you have to give up something that's worth
anything. And it's not worth anything because it doesn't help you when you die.
And if there were some time between tonight and the time you die...then, then it
would make sense to try for those things but you don't know, it could end
tonight. So since you don't know, it doesn't make any sense to try for those
things. Since you could die tonight it doesn't make any sense to run after the
things that you will lose the minute you die. {Kyabje Pabongkha} in his {lam
rim} makes a nice analogy, he says, if some guy threatens to come to your house
and murder you, ah, but he says I'll come some time in the next month...the next
thirty days, maybe tomorrow or maybe thirty days from now, I will come to
your house and murder you. You know, so if you didn't have a lock on your
door would you wait twenty-nine days to put the lock on your door? Or would
you put it on tonight? You, you would put it on tonight and then you're safe,
okay? So if he doesn't come for twenty days, for twenty nights you sleep well, it
doesn't matter, okay, but it would be very foolish to wait until the twenty-ninth
day on the assumption that he was going to come on the thirtieth day. Which is
what we all do, we all think not important...we can have our careers and we can
worry about all these worldly things now, and then I can catch up on dharma
before I die. Because life expectancy is up to seventy-one now, you know...that's
an average, okay? I mean, a lot of people die before and a lot of people die
young, and there's no order, I mean, younger people die first sometimes, older
people die later...many sons die before their fathers.

[student: Michael?]

Yeah?

[student: Can I ask you shortly, these things, it seems that to reincarnate as a
human being is a matter of merit but then on the other side, they, they give you
this example of the turtle sticking their neck out of the ocean, it seems to be a
matter of luck, so...]

It, that doesn't refer to the luck...that refers to the statistical odds of becoming
human. It's not luck...I mean, the, the example of the turtle is luck, that he comes
up through the hole but that's not the point of that story. The point is that that's
how often a normal person can become a human in his next life.

[student: So it's very difficult to accumulate merit]

Yeah, almost impossible. Like the odds against becoming a human in your next
life are almost infinite.
[student: So in the next lifetime, most probably unless if you do something
special, we'll not be humans.]

No.

[student: But I thought once you get to be human, you keep going, no?]

Not at all. The odds are, are greatly against, they may be a million to one or a
thousand to one...the odds are against you. Because if you really check every
one of your thoughts during the day, very few of them are charitable, very few
of them are, are the kind of virtue that got you here. Very, very, very
few...almost none, you know and they're very weak, and the ones that are, you
know, the ones of being irritated with other people, and saying something being
impolite to other people and being harassed or hassled by all those people on the
subway or on the street and we're out there with the [unclear] I don't like all
these people...all of those thoughts are non-virtue. So they're much more
frequent. Okay. Now we, we get into how to stop desire for future life, okay.
We don't have enough sense to have desire for future life, all right? We really
don't, I mean I don't know about you but I don't worry, you know, I'm, it's not
like I'm doing charity now-a-days so that I can come and clean you in my next
life, you know. I mean this is referring to that. It also refers, {Pabongkha} says,
{Kyabje Pabongkha} says, to people who, as they get older, and you see people
like that when they reach their seventies, late sixties they start to get religious
and they start to pray that they 're gonna to go to heaven when they die because
they saw so much death around them, it's indisputable now, all of their friends
are dead...they don't longer have any hope of a career past sixty-five, they have
no worldly thing that they're after any more, they, it wouldn't make any sense to
make a ten year investment...and they know it, I mean they finally reached a
point where, you know, most of their friends are dead, so, those people start to
get religious and they start hoping that when they'll die they'll go to heaven. I
had a, a, a priest friend at the school where we went to school and...and he, he
would make a joke that he had a priest friend who, who was just waiting to die
so he could get to heaven, you know, he...that's all he wanted was to die, and he
was old and he was sick, and he...all right now I just want the reward, I don't
want to hang around any longer, you know...and that's ah, the dark of future
life, that's most of what people have when they get old and they are hoping for
some kind of good future for themselves after they die, it's, it's simple
attachment. It's the same as desire for money in this life, same thing. Assuming
that they are not thinking that, with any kind of motivation that helps, to help
others, you know.

[student: So what you're saying, it sounds like what you're saying that they
were implicit in what you're saying, that the distinction between going to some
paradise heaven versus say to a place like {Tushita} heaven, I mean.]

Even that, {Kyabje Pabongkha} says, people who...he says most people who
have a desire to go to that heaven, have a desire which is motivated by a non-
virtue.

[student: So if it's motivated by boddhichitta, then a...]

Much different [unclear], yeah. We, that was our first quiz, I think, "Isn't virtue
necessarily a path to nirvana?"

[student: [unclear] brings you to Buddhahood.]

But it doesn't have the three paths...if you don't have the three paths in your
mind, no, it won't reach [unclear] okay, and Buddhahood, okay, so...we'll talk a
little bit about future lives, all right? And we'll talk about it in two term...two
senses. One is the proof of future lives and then the second is the proof where
your...the content of your future life. Other books say, and I can look it up for
you on a computer, there's a book called the [b: Pramata Vratica], yeah?

[student, John Stilwell: Before we sort of get off the subject of last week, can I
ask a question about that?]

Yeah, sure.

[student, John Stilwell: Once we really tap into and try to generate this
renunciation and see all the suffering, really, of all the people that are around us
in the street da-da-da-da- da-da, what's the a, sort of counter to that big downer,
you know, that's the joy of life day to day?]

I think it's ah, it's anticipating but it's boddhichitta, you know. It's ah...there's
some kind of joy in ah...when you get the suffering of the world clear in your
mind, like you're in your...sitting in your chair, and that's the best place to
meditate sometimes, you're just relaxing on a couch and you're, you're
oppressed by the suffering of the world, when you really can get a clear picture
of it and it's much more vast than you thought, the people that you think are
happy are also suffering badly, and it comes out, in, as you know them they get
some disease or they get disillusioned with their career or they get knocked off
from their position, and ah, everyone does, so, even the people who look like
they were doing okay you find out aren't doing okay and then you get kind of
depressed. I think then if you really get some kind of insight into boddhichitta
where you, you imagine what it would be like if you could help everyone. You
know, if, if you could be of some assistance to all those people, some comfort to
all of them and you get some kind of vision of that, just in a fantasy even, I think
that's enough to make you quite happy, you know. And it karmically, it should,
you know. So that's, that's the...we'll get there. [laughs] Okay, all right, ah, first
we have to prove future lives and then we have to say what's going to happen in
there. The proof of them is, is very simple. Basically the texts say, there is only
one proof of future life. {Tsongkhapa}, {Je Tsongkhapa} says, I believe it's in the
[b: Lam Rim Chenmo], there's only one proof and it's simple and it's difficult to
{dokpa}, okay. What's {dokpa}?

[students: Realize]

Realize. It's difficult to internalize, it's difficult to make it part of your own mind.
Very difficult. But, and there's only one proof and it's very simple and it's true.
It's so simple that it sounds ridiculous to people who don't want to hear about it,
okay? It's this, it's very simple. Right now you have a consciousness of this class,
okay? You have a, a, you have an awareness, 'a', you have a stream of mind
going on. And what the mind is focusing on right now is this class. The content
of the mirror of your mind, what's showing in the mirror is this class right
now...and, what was it before that?

[student, Nina Vicari: Coming to the class]

You can imagine it. By the way, if you get good at meditating, you can meditate
back quite far and if you practice it with good meditation every day, like a half
hour an hour a day, you can actually go back to your childhood [unclear] or you
can do something amazing if you think about this meditation. But you just
figure out, you try to remember what was the thought you had before you
came in here, I mean, you can remember opening the door. You can remember
standing outside in that street, I, I assume, okay? [laughter] And then you can
remember getting to that street. And you can remember what happened today
at work. And you can remember what happened this morning. Which means
that, that proves the stream of your mind. Your mind does go on in a stream,
okay? What you put into the mind now affects the way your mind is later, and
Americans believe it a hundred percent or they would not send young children
to school, knowing that as they go through first, second, third grade, fourth
grade, fifth grade that by the time they get to tenth grade or twelfth grade
they've filled up the knowledge...they still remember what they learned on the
first grade, or basically the basics of what they learned, the alphabet, the
numbers, addition, subtraction, they're building on that until they reach high
school or college. If you didn't believe that...if you thought that every time that
they graduated from first grade they would forget everything in first grade and
then go on to second grade without anything carrying over, you wouldn't send
them to first grade. So American society believes in the stream of the mind.

[student, Vilma Staiano: Is this samsara? Is this?]

We defined samsara last time, no?

[student, Vilma Staiano: Yes, but...]

Yeah, the stream of a dirty mind, {sak je}, impure mind, yeah, the Buddha has a
stream of mind but it's not...

[student, Vilma Staiano: This is also that, that proof of, of that as well].

Ah, it proves the stream part, yeah.

[student: But they say that]

But we didn't get there yet.

[student: Oh, you mean there's more in mind as far as, you know, you can bring
some books around, you know, you assume that you will die together with your
body [unclear] refined, your...]

We'll get there.

[student: Big mind [unclear].]

We'll get there, we'll get there, we'll get there, we'll get there. Basically there's a
cause for your awareness today. The cause for your awareness today has to be
another awareness. Buddhism, like western science, believes...western science
teaches that matter stuff cannot be destroyed, it just changes, it transforms into
new stuff. John Stilwell will die, the skin and bones will turn into dust, the dust
will be in some coffin somewhere, the bugs will eat it, the bugs will die, some
other bug will eat it, some bird will eat that bug...I mean the matter, the stuff of
John Stilwell just never is destroyed. And that's the principle of science, I mean
that's true...you can't destroy matter. And it's the same thing with mind. Matter,
if you could trace it back, you could find all the different kinds of matter there
were, all the different shapes it took, first it was Shakespeare, then it was
Abraham Lincoln and now it's John Stilwell, made of the same dust, right? No,
really...it had to have been somebody, the dust in John Stilwell, right? And
according to buddhism there's a, there's a kind of cause, which means main
cause, it's called {nyer le king goo}...the atoms, the stuff that makes up John
Stilwell's body has to come from some stuff before. Period. You can't destroy
that stuff...every atom in you came from some energy or stuff before, physical
stuff, before...period...and, and science believes it and we, we believe it. But we
say the same thing is true of mind. And mind is separate from the body, you
can't burn mind, you can't touch mind, you can't see mind, you can't locate
mind...okay? Mind is invisible and mind knows and that's the only two qualities
it has, okay? Very interesting, okay? Aahh...so what caused your awareness of
tonight's class? Or the metal for a car. What was the main cause of, of that
consciousness?

[student: Prior [unclear] ]

The consciousness of the day before. It has to be. I mean, consciousness...mental
stuff can only be caused by mental stuff. Period. It's very simple and it's very
profound and it's true. Mental material can only be caused by a main cause of
other mental material. So to have an awareness today, you must have had an
awareness yesterday. Your...the awareness yesterday is the cause for the
awareness today. The stuff, the mental stuff that is here today has to come from
some other mental stuff, as much as the physical stuff has to come from some
previous physical stuff, period, it must. If you accept that one thing, then science
has established it, you know you believe it for material things, but if you accept it
and you think about it for mental things, what's the implication?              Then
yesterday's mind had to come from...the mind of the day before, must have,
okay? And the mind before that?

[student, Fran Dayan: Beginningless time? I mean it's going back. ]

Yeah, it's beginningless...the mind stuff is beginningless, your mental stream is
be...is beginningless according to buddhism it had no beginning. You cannot say
this is Nitia's continuum's first thought. Five minutes before that he never had a
thought...it's impossible, it's, it's impossible. And that, that sounds...you can't
accept it right now, why do you accept that matter is, what that physical matter
is indestructible cause you learned it in school, you would never have come up
with it yourself. Okay. [laughs] [laughter] Why don't you accept that mental
stuff is indestructible, you didn't hear it before, you have to think about it, okay,
it's true, it's true. Imagine coming to a class and having an awareness and there
being no similar stuff in the universe to cause that awareness, the moment
before, it's impossible...it's impossible. So you have had a, past lives and there is
no other proof in buddhism. They don't go looking for some guy who
remembers his past life, 'cause who's gonna accept it anyway? Yeah.

[student: Well, okay, I try to [unclear][unclear] right...of course. ]

Yeah, among other things. [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

[student: So ah, anyway, I mean, so I kind of said that's an example [unclear]
well, if it didn't, if, if that's not true then, you know, then, what, what came, you
know...]

What caused it...

[student: Yeah, what, what, you know when you were born how come
suddenly you thought, you know, this feeling like, that you were you and before
that you never did? Where do you think it came from? And his only answer is,
"I don't know." ]

No we don't know, we're not taught it in school.            We don't think about it
much...children ask the question and...

[student: But it's sort of like a brick wall at that point, I mean wouldn't
you...there's no way beyond it.]

It's very ahhh...you can do it, I've done it with friends, I have, you know I have
high school friends I haven't seen in twenty years and recently I met them
recently, and we spent a weekend in a cabin with two other guys, one is a baptist
and one is a catholic.

[student: Oh my god]
What it is, [laughter] and by the end, oh, by the end of the time they said, yeah it
makes sense, you know, what should I do now? And I ta...teach them [unclear].
I think if you sit down and talk about it calmly, and logically, and if it doesn't
work the first time, if you hit a brick wall, you stop! As you will learn, in
buddhist logic, you are not allowed to debate a person who does not accept the
principles that you are using to prove what you're proving.

[student, Nina Vicari: What?]

I'll give you an example. If I'm trying to prove that, ah...my, my, my Honda is a
car, okay? I'm trying to prove that my Honda is a car, and if someone doesn't...I
have to, the guy that I'm talking to has to accept, that if something is...let's put it
this, another way...

[student, John Stilwell: He's got to accept what a car is.]

Well no, hang on...well I'll give you, I'll give you the example in buddhism, okay,
the, the classical example, okay? If sound's something that is made...if sounds
something produced, sounds...how they produced...do they have causes?

[student: No]

Yeah, all sound has causes, sound is produced, okay? Is anything produced also
impermanent, if something has a cause will it always die?

[students: Yes.]

Yes. No? Kylie say no. If something is caused, will it always perish?

[student, Kylie: No, well I would demanding that your buddhahood, for
instance, is something that's caused and I don't know that [unclear] ]

It's a difficult question. Ah it does perish from instant to instant, no, it's a good
example, it's a famous example...it's a famous example. That's why the word
permanent, the english translation permanent is a little tricky.

[student: Also cessations, for instance, I thought they were permanent.]

They are permanent. Are they caused? No. [unclear]
[student, Nina Vicari: Why would you go no further with the debate, I'm, I'm
still lost. ]

No, it works, hang on. Let's assume that you accept that sound is caused...sound
has causes, sounds have causes. I'm snapping my fingers, they make a sound,
okay? If something is caused, it must perish, let's assume you accept that. Bill.

[student, Bill: It is a relative phenomenon related to something.]

Now suppose you go and meet someone who says sounds...never end, sounds
do not perish, and you go up to them and you say well let's, let's, let me ask you
something... I'll ask you two questions. Is sound something that's caused? And
he says, "Yeah." And I say, "If it's caused, must it perish?" And he says, "Yes." So
he accepts everything already, he didn't come to the right conclusion with the
right facts. He accepts that sound has causes. He accepts that if something is
caused it must end. The only time you're allowed to debate a person in
buddhism, that's, and to debate with him why it's true that sound is perishing,
will perish, is if he already accepts those first two thoughts. He already accepts
everything he needs to know to draw the right conclusion, he just didn't draw
the right conclusion yet. You're not allowed to debate anyone in, in any other
circumstance, it's very interesting, and if you think about it, every debate you
ever win is simply demonstrating to the other person that he should have drawn
this conclusion from what he already knows.

[student: So you're not allowed because you won't win the argument?]

You cannot wi...you cannot establish the truth of it to him if he does not accept
those two premises. Even if he does agree to...with you, it won't be true, it won't
be because he's accepting the necessary facts, and he didn't draw the right
conclusion yet...

[student, John Stilwell: Is the point that he's accept...]

That's the only way you can truly convince anyone of something.

[student, John Stilwell: Is the point that he accepts your same premises or he
draws the same conclusions as you from those premises?]

Ah, he, he accepts the same premises by which you must draw that conclusion.
[student, John Stilwell: So the point is not...I'm trying to understand...he has to
accept the premises and he has to draw the conclusion to [unclear] ]

No, he has not yet realized the conclusion...he's, you're just drawing his attention
to two facts that he already accepts which, which imply that he must accept your,
your statement.

[student, Vilma Staiano: You have to argue the premises to begin with.]

Yeah, you check out the premises...you say to me, "Sound never ends." and I say
to you, "Aw, it never ends, huh? Well, is it made?" and you say, "Of course it's
made." And I say to you, "Well, do all made things end?", and you say, "Of course
it ends, all made things end." so I say, "Well then you're crazy cause sound must
end according to yourself." And that's the only way in buddhism you're allowed
to argue with someone, technically.

[student: And if they don't agree with that, then you can't...]

They're crazy. They're called {nying dingwa}...by the way, that's another logical
fallacy in buddhism, I mean, you're not allowed to debate a crazy person.
[laughs]

[student, John Stilwell: Or else you go crazy. ]

No, if he accepts that everything that's made must die, if he accepts that sound is
made, and then he refuses that sound ends...he's crazy. Now, who was this
argument made for? Did...by the way, this is the classical argument in buddhism
when we study logic, that is the classical statement. It was for certain non-
buddhist schools in India long, long ago who said that the word {om} was
permanent. They said the very...the sound {om} was endless, never ends, never
[unclear].

[student: The essence of existence.]

Yeah...something like that. So the buddhists that come out, is, is {om} made? Do
you make {om} with your lips and your tongue? "Of course I do!" Well, if it's
made with your tongue and your lips does it have to perish? "Of course." Well,
then doesn't {om} perish? "Aw, yeah."

[student, Bill: They said it was the sound of the spheres and those spheres are,
who knows there since when. ]

Yeah, yeah this is the first, so how did we get into this?

[student, Bill: [unclear] ]

Oh, so all you have to do is to get them to accept is that if something causes
another thing, it must be the same stuff. Apples...

[student, Bill: In the zen, they have this thing, and they say that enlightenment
comes suddenly and it comes just as a jump, not just a [unclear] thing, in fact, for
example.]

I'm, I'm not sure what it is, what it means.

[student, Bill: I find difficult just to relate this, this kind of aspect of the zen
training where, you, you have to jump, if you want, you have to jump out of
the, the training, in a way, if you want to realize something, it's not a consel....]

You've got the wrong guy, I don't know anything about this [laughs]...ask me
about, you know, swahili or [unclear] I don't know. I really don't know, I, I
actually I know as much as any common person knows, I don't know. It is
possible to attain enlightenment in a second, of course. But according to
buddhism, it must occur through many, many years of plain old morality, plain
old thinking, plain old practice, you know, it's not, boom, you know, from
something that's not even similar. It cannot happen. We're gonna talk about that
tonight. So anyway, the guy...you can get anyone in the world to accept that
anything that has a cause, must come from a cause which is made of similar stuff,
and whatever that cause is made up must have come from a cause that had
similar stuff...and then it's, and then it's pretty simple...I mean, but it's so different
to the way we were brought up it's difficult for people to accept, that's all.

[student, Vilma Staiano: Can, can you talk about a collective consciousness then,
from, from this?]

Buddhism does not accept the collective consciousness...I, we wish it were, you
know? The Buddha could share his consciousness with me, I wouldn't have to
suffer, I wouldn't have to get old, I wouldn't have to go to the dentist, you
know? Huh?
[student, Bill: The collective unconscious [unclear] be there, then you know...]

[student, John Stilwell: What's collective karma then?]

That's a different thing, that's a different thing. We are all, since we are doing a
virtue tonight, assuming we have three paths, ah, we will all meet each other in
our pa...buddhafields, we will, in our paradises. Ah, but that each person
collects...individually.

[student, John Stilwell: So how is it...]

We'll talk about it, [unclear]...these are beautiful questions and that's why it takes
five years to go through the course and you will see all those things. And these
are exactly the questions that buddhists had two thousand years ago.

[student, John Stilwell: Why is it not possible for mind to, to come from a
collection of other causes, resulting in the arisal of mind?]

Can your ah, physical matter come from something like mind?

[student, John Stilwell: Well, say I'm baking a cake, I mean all the ingredients
result in a cake.]

Could, could a...yeah, the flour is the main ingredient, the flour is what we call
{nyer nun gyi gyiwa gu kay}...it's the main stuff that comes into the cake and it
must be similar to the cake...

[student, John Stilwell: Right, it's part of it, and then you break down the flour
and it has other stuff that constitutes...]

Yeah, what caused the flour? The seed of the flour, which had a similar stuff...it
has to be, you just think about it. I can't and I...you, you, you won't a, believe it
right away, I can promise you that, but over a matter of years you...it will sink
in.

[student, John Stilwell: What I'm trying to get to, are there sub...in essence, sub-
components, endlessly...]

Oh, we'll get to that...we'll get to that. That comes in chapter two, [laughter] [b:
Abhidharmakosha]...{semba tsorwa tushay da}, that's a line...yes?
[student: I, I'm just wondering about what's the difference between matter and
consciousness, because if buddhism [unclear] says there's a point in time when
there's a voidness and there's a period of creation, when physical matter comes
into existence, why couldn't it have consciousness come into existence in a similar
way?]

Universes die and are born and that's taught in the [b: Abhidharmakosha], third
chapter, at the end. But ah...they're not made newly, I mean the stuff comes
from...

[student: Somewhere.]

Yeah, and especially the beings...like some people say, "Well where the beings go
when the universe was being destroyed?" They move...their, their consciousness
shifts to another universe for that period...according to the [b:
Abhidharmakosha].

[student: They move.]

[student: They sublet.]

 According to the [b: Abhidharmakosha], that's how a world is populated and it
goes through how, you know, which beings come first, how beings come
first...like that...they move from another universe.

[student: So there are infinite universes in existence at any one time?]

Pretty much, yeah. That's another debate, around the third chapter of the [b:
Prajna Paramita]. Okay? All right. Ah, having established to your complete
satisfaction [laughter] that your mind was beginningless, what accounts for its
content? At any given time? [laughter]

[student, John Stilwell: Television!]

[laughter]

[student: [unclear] Budweiser commercials]

[laughter] [laughs]
The new ones are rather extraordinary...anyway [laughter]...[unclear] someone
screaming in a bar, "I like it!", then again [unclear]...we're going to learn the four
principles of karma, okay? Do you have, I need page thirty-four...

[student: Is this like the next step in the, in the proof of future lives?]

No...we've already proved future lives. [laughter] Ah, this is now, ah, proving
how what, now what happens to you. What will your future life be like? I've
just proved to you that you will have a future life.

[students: [unclear] ]

No, you don't accept it yet so I'm not going to push it. You don't accept the
principles yet and I, and I don't have...we'll get to it [b: Pramana Pratica], second
chapter, nineteen ninety-seven.

[student, Vilma Staiano: But so much, so much of, of everything hinges on
accepting that, so at this point it's about faith, which is a little uncomfortable.]

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah it is at the beginning, it's called {samchu gyi}. No, it is
true...but I'll tell you something else. The real principles of karma are in a
category of phenomenon which we call extremely subtle, extremely hard to
perceive.      Down here, in what we call apparent phenomenon, apparent
phenomena are colors, shapes, sounds, anyone can hear or see those whose not
blind or can't...in the second category are things which are very difficult to
perceive, and emptiness is in there. And deeper than that and more difficult to
perceive than that is karma. It's interesting. The principles of karma are more
difficult to perceive than emptiness and they must at first be accepted on
scriptural authority, not faith, okay?

[student: What's the difference there?]

[laughter] No, yeah, there is. The Buddha said, who can't lie and know...who
knows all things, which we have to prove to you, okay, and there is {Sector Prata
Pratavita}, nineteen ninety-eight...[laughter]

[student, John Stilwell: Which requires more faith than karma!]

[laughs] Okay, he said, {ji}, what's that? {Jimpay long ju tim gi bay}, famous, he
said, a, he said, "Give to other people and you will receive. Keep your morality
and you will have bliss.", and he went on a long list like that, and that is the root
text by the Buddha that proves karma and the only way you can perceive karma
is through...deduction based on his words. You cannot see it directly, you cannot
see it through deduction based on reasoning...on your own thinking, you
cannot. Buddhism doesn't accept that you can perceive the truth of karma
through your own thinking. We don't accept that, we don't believe that. At
the...especially at the beginning, you must accept karma, you must perceive the
existence of karma, the truth of karma through scripture and through thinking,
"Well, that sounds logical." But, but you can't come up with it on pure logic...it's,
we don't even accept that you can. It's interesting. You'll get into that, how to
prove things, okay? Okay, anyway, if karma existed, [laughs] let's put it that
way, all right? Let me see something...auuummmmmmm

[student: I don't know if I can explain it to anybody [laughs] [laughter] and
make them, and make them believe it.]

He says here, name...well anyway...okay, that's all he says. He says ah...well
anyway, he's talking about correct behavior, you know, why, why should you
be good, for your future life. He says, "You will automatically be good for your
future life if you understand these four principles of karma." These are the four
principles of karma. It's on your homework, it could very possibly be on your
quiz. I better make sure if I grade it.

[silence, sort of...]

First principle of karma, please say {le nyer pa}[repeat],{le nyer pa}[repeat]. {Le}
means "karma", karma. In colloquial tibetan, {le go} means "work". You know,
what's your {le go}? What, what kind of line of work are you in? {Le}. Work.
Three ways to commit {le}, how? Three ways to do {le}.

[student: Body, speech and mind?]

Yeah, body, speech and mind.

[student: Which is really mu...one, right? It's the...]

 Well, mind comes first. You think you do something, and then you move your
body or your tongue, the driver if you like.
[student: But even if you just commit an act of mind you could build karma.]

Sure. The simple...that's why we say three kinds of karma. The, the act of
thinking is karma {le le jikten natso kay, le nay sembo umpto le chay}, okay?

[student: That's why boddhichitta...]

Fourth chapter [b: Abhidharmakosha], opening lines.

[student: Boddhichitta's in that, I mean [unclear] ]

Oh absolutely it is in karma. Yeah. But just the act of any act of thinking is
karma, and actually the definition of karma is the act of thinking. {Le} means
{sembo...dal de chay} and what those acts of thinking inspire, in your body and
tongue.

[student, John Stilwell: How does such a twisted concept of karma get out there
in the world when such a simple clear definition...]

Well I think the...and, and in buddhist and in tibetan literature and in buddhist
literature, the fact of thinking and the power created by it are sometimes also
blurred together, they are separate things. The act of thinking is a mental stuff.
Thinking is mental stuff. The power that's thereby created, the seed which is
thereby created, is, is, is not mental stuff. It's what we call something changeable
that's neither mental nor physical, okay, so {dem on gyi chi}...a non-chang...a
changing non-mental non-physical [unclear], okay? Yeah, they, they sometimes
blur together in buddhism too and, and when you're translating into english
sometimes you have to choose which way you're going to translate it. Karma,
meaning the action that you do or karma meaning the energy thereby created,
which is gonna affect you later...see? It's difficult. [Unclear] we have the schools
get into, well, is there any difference?

[student, John Stilwell: That's where it gets far afield, 'cause I mean when people
start to hear you get the energy that you created they think there's this energy
that floats around Pluto, you know, like you said.]

Well, we got to get into the [unclear]. Okay.

[student: Michael, doesn't it also turn into results?]
Never. But in, in common english it does. "Well that's my karma.", you know?
[Unclear] in tibetan, in buddhism [unclear] {cur} is the sanskrit root for "to do".
{Cara ti day} is the sanskrit word meaning "to do", like you eat, okay? Anyway...
{le nyepa}, {nyepa} means "definite, fixed, certain".           First principle of
karma...karma is definite.

[student: Does that mean that a specific cause will produce a predictable result?]

It's very, very simple. What's the definition of good karma? Kylie? Very simple
definition, [b: Abhidharmakosha].

[student, Kylie: That which, well a...you said there's, there's... a cause or as a
result? As a cause? That way it causes something pleasant.]

Yeah. An action of body, deed or...body, mind or...body, speech or mind, which
produces a, a, an attractive result, is the definition of good karma. Good karma
means any action which you undertake mentally, physically or verbally...which
produces a, an attractive result. Karmically speaking. [laughter] We'll get into
that, but actually you don't even have to say karmically speaking, period. Any
action of body, speech or mind, any thought, word or action which brings you
an attractive result is good karma.

[student: Even if what you're attracted to is not something good for you, it's still
good karma.]

Yeah, that's true too. That's true. What about bad karma? Just the opposite, any
action...what? Laura, bad karma, give me the definition.

[student, Laura: Any action...]

Of.

[student, Laura: body, speech or mind, thought, word, deed...]

Which.

[student, Laura: which produces a bad result.]

Yeah, non-attractive.
[student, Laura: Unattractive.]

[student: But how does, I'm sorry, how does that tie to the principle of karma is
definite?]

Well there we're going to talk about it right now. The, the bottom line is that, ah,
a virtuous deed, a good deed, a good thought, a good word, a good action can
not, and will never, produce anything but an attractive result, period. So Kylie...

[student, Laura: Is that the same as what goes around, comes around?]

Sure. If you're in our bosses office, [unclear], and a, you have just made a major
error, that he doesn't know about, and that you can get out of by not saying
anything...or by, or by slightly avoiding, you know, I'm not telling him the
truth...

[student, Kylie: You mean something that I can't fix and a, I don't tell him about
anyway or something that I can fix and I just don't tell him about it 'til after I fix
it?]

Something that you...some bad thing in business that you are responsible for,
okay? And he asks you, "Were you responsible for that?" And if you slightly
twist the answer, you're off scot-free, he will never know...and that's easy for
you, 'cause you're a computer expert, so computer experts can always say it was
a transistor chip went off you know, instead of "I hit the wrong key and
[unclear]" you know...and if you then say, "It was a transistor chip."...and if, and if
then he says, "You're a genius.", you know, "Thank you for your efforts, I
appreciate it.", you know, "You're a good guy and you did the right thing.",
that's, that's a pleasant result, he praises you. It's not, you know, "I'm glad to
hear it wasn't your fault, you're a good man." Is that pleasure come from your
lie?

[student, Kylie: Well, as Rinpoche has explained many times, the, the result of
karma usually is experienced in many, many lifetimes after the one in which it
was created.]

No, no not at all.

[student, Kylie: Well, he said there's three ways it's experienced: in the same life
it was created, in the next life and in many lives after the next life. And he said,
the vast majority of it is experienced many lives after the next life. So, and very
few of 'em are experienced in this life, so I would say that it just must be some
coincidence that the nice result I'm getting from my boss right now is from some
other karma that was good and I would be foolish to think that it came from an
unvirtuous act that I just a, committed which had been a lie.]

Yeah, that's all, that's all, okay? What's the opposite? Suppose ah, you decide
one day to be truthful to your fiance, and ah...

[student: Just one day, huh?]

[laughter] A momentous decision...no, you don't [unclear] to tell the truth about
something that you know she'll be angry, you know she's gonna get angry and
that hurts you. So, but you decide that it's better to do it. And then, if you tell
the absolute straight, god's truth, and then she gets very angry and screams at
you, something very unattractive, did the, did the truth cause the anger?

[students, various: No. No. Never.]

[student: I think if you're an angry person, you're an angry person no matter
what they say...]

No, no. If emptiness is true, that's not a true statement.

 [student: No, I'm saying if you, if you allow anger to hang around in your
mind, you know, and you're ready to...[unclear]...if you have a choice to react to
things and that's the habitual choice of yours, to react in anger...]

Wait, wait, I'm just asking a simple question. [laughter] Did, did telling the truth,
did telling the truth result in a bad result? An unattractive result of her yelling at
you?

[student: Well, by its very definition on the truth of something virtuous, so how
can it produce something that was bad?]

Cannot, it cannot but we live our lives based on the opposite. We live our lives
exactly on the opposite. You really do, and, and y...and I will go over to work
tomorrow and I'll do it again, and I'm teaching it and I'm knowing it for years.
It's, it's your nature, it's human nature, you know? It's...but, but start thinking
this way and you'll...some things incredible will happen, you know? People, for
no reason at all, which is usually the way it goes, get, get very upset with you or
they, they fire you or they scream at you or you know it can be partly your fault
and often times there's no fault of yours at all, or it can be wholly your fault...but
they're screaming at you, doesn't seem to make any sense, sometimes you're at
fault they scream at you, sometimes you're not at fault they scream at you,
sometimes you're not at fault and they praise you, sometimes you are at fault
and they praise you...you know, it seems like almost random. It is. [laughs] It is.
You're, you're experiencing results of different actions. Okay? It, it, it does...just
think about it the next time you want to...you can tell a small lie, a white lie and
get out of a problem. Ah, that's not why you got out of the problem. Or you do
a little bad thing that nobody's gonna hear about, nobody will know, it must
bring suffering to you, it must. That's {le nyepa}, that's the fixed quality of
karma.

[student: Well, unless you ah, do something to nullify it.]

We'll talk about it, we'll talk about it. We'll get there, yes?

[student, John Stilwell: Is that what they [unclear] people talk about, purifying
your karma, is that essentially what they mean when they say, you know, purify
your karma is to go into a situation, perhaps knowing that doing what's
virtuous, telling the truth, getting screamed at, you're in essence providing the
framework to have this negativity come upon you and experience it with some
objective [unclear]...]

It's not a practice, it's not a practice. I mean, I understand what you mean and it's
true. It's true that when the person screams at you, you can take some comfort
in the fact that you've just worn out a lousy karma.

[student, John Stilwell: Have you in fact?]

Ooo yeah, you have. If you react with any kind of being upset, you've just
created exactly the same karma again, and you'll be yelled at again.

[student, John Stilwell: So, so, so if you, if you hadn't created that opportunity
for them to yell at you, you would not have experienced that karma.]

Not true. That part is not true. You see, you could have done a proper
mahayana purification. In the comfort of your own home. [laughter]
[student: [unclear] ]

No, not have to be ah, not have to be dealing with it. You know, you could
[unclear].

[student: [unclear] ]

But actually, at that point, you have...John, you have no choice. You have no
choice, you have to tell the truth, you have no choice.

[student, John Stilwell: The choice is to purify now or later, you tend to reap the,
bear the results later.]

It's not so much to purify, it's just that you want to create good karma, you have
to tell the truth. There is no other option. There is no option.

[student: Michael, like the example that you give the first lesson, right? That's
when you lied and you create some profit for your boss and enjoys the result of
a good karma, but still, between you and yourself at night there remain the fact
that you lied.]

I lied, I do lie.

[student: You're not following, you're not following your moral, ah, setting.]

But what will let you follow...you see? Why, why is it that we're still lying, why
is it that I'm still lying after four years, you know, of life? And after twenty years
of buddhist education. It's, it's your instincts. It is your instincts...and it is because
I didn't study well enough, or I didn't meditate on what I knew.

[student, Kylie: What about when people are sort of demanding you like them?
Like, if you were being straight forward in business and n...no business would
ever get done. Like, c'mon! Tell me another way! You know what I mean? Let's
haggle here.]

It's not true, it's not what makes the business succeed, it's so funny, y'know? And
that's why people bust their brains over how to succeed, you know, it's so funny.
No book ever written that didn't have these four principles in it, about how to
succeed, was true. Period. You know? Those books are even so contradictory to
each other. Donald Trump tells you to do one thing and ah, what's-his-name, the
head of A...IT&T, what's his name, he tells you to do the opposite, the head of
Sony tells you to do...I have to read all these books, my boss made us read 'em.
You know, after a while you say, "Well don't you remember the book you gave
us last, it said to do the opposite." [laughs] [laughter]

[student: [unclear] ]

Yeah, right, okay. It, it's a, it's a very revolutionary concept...it will change your
life. If you try it, you will...he talked about when does the karmic result ripen,
but there are constantly ripenings. Even minor ripenings that will start to take
place all the time around you. What would it be like, what would the world be
like if everyone believed in that first principle? You know, people could, could
never lie.

[silence]

[cut] You know, if everyone believed that that was true, in their own self
interest, no one would ever lie, and then what would the world be like?

[student: Wow.]

What if out of their own knowledge, people understood clearly that they cannot
lie. And if you could believe everything that everyone ever said to you, because
you knew that everyone in the world understands this karma, so no one can
ever lie to me...it would be incredible. That's, you know, when we were in
religion class in university, they used to say well, the test of religion is what
would happen if everybody were doing it, and they said buddhism's stupid
'cause there'd all be no kids. [laughs] No, but, this is the real thing. I mean, think
about it. Yeah?

[student: Michael, aren't there circumstances where you...I mean I can think of
extreme circumstances where you would have to lie to save a life, ah...]

We talked about it.

[student:   [unclear] to save a life.   So then isn't there such a thing as mixed
karma?]

Well we talked...there is absolutely a thing called black and white karma, and we
talked about some examples in one of the classes we had. Yes it, a boddhisattva
is required to lie, by his vows, if it's gonna save a person's life, for example. Now
he does get a bad karma.

[student: He does?]

Yeah, I mean I've checked it with my lama recently, 'cause someone...people
were asking these questions a lot. "He does get a bad karma." he said, "The good
karma he gets is ten thousand times more powerful." The bad karma he gets,
because of his motivation, is extremely minuscule and even then he knows how
to purify it the next moment, so...no big problem, yeah, in his own home, you
know? [laughter] No he doesn't experience more than the second itch on his
finger or something, you know, so that's what [unclear]. Okay, that's the first.
Think about it, it's revolutionary, it's extraordinary. No good action that you
ever do will ever cause you any pain And no wrong action you ever do will ever
cause you anything but pain. Impossible. Ah, and you accept it with all other
kinds of causes, like Jesus is always talking about fruits, and that's why he's
always talking about fruits. You know, plant a lemon seed and stand over it and
beg an orange tree to come up. [laughs] It's crazy and you accept that it's
crazy...a lemon seed cannot and never will under normal, and except for
biogenetics or whatever, ah, create an orange tree, impossible, impossible. They
are of different natures, they are of different stuff...goodness creates goodness,
badness creates badness, it will never mix, impossible, impossible, you accept it
with seeds, physical seeds then why not accept it with mental seeds, you know?
No one in the world would, would plant a garden with cactus seeds in New
York, you know, hoping that they would get an evergreen tree...that'll live to the
winter, it's crazy. You know, it's impossible. And it's the same with a, karmic
seeds, mental seeds, it's, it's just impossible that something good creates
something bad. Or that a, or that a wrong act would create some pleasant result
for you, impossible...if you think about it the way a child would think about it,
they're completely different stuff. Just comple..one is sweet, one is sour, how,
who would plant a lemon seed to get a sweet apple tree, it's impossible. Yeah?

[student, John Stilwell: So if our, our mindstream is...[unclear]? All of our past
karma, you know, that's brought us to where we are, all, all of the workings of
our mind that's brought us to where we are right now, right? Those are all
causes and conditions which had come together to create us in these
circumstances. How does our freedom of choice come into play with this our
volition? How is volition separate then karma and mind? Is it? Is it not?]

It is true that, and Tom often mentions it, you know, you gotta have some
extraordinary virtue to believe in virtue. You know it's almost a catch-twenty-
two. And that's true, unfortunately it's true, you know, buddhism, people say,
when you read the descriptions of the animal realms, in the [b: Lam Rim], in the
big [b: Lam Rim]s, which you will do someday, aaah, they say animals...especial
suffering of animals, is that they only do non-virtue. I mean my lama used to
point to the robins, he'd say, we see a fresh spring coming, and the robin is there
on the lawn, and we're happy and he'd says, "Oh my god, the robins are here
again." 'Cause he can't bear to see them, they, they...

[student, John Stilwell: Kill insects and worms?]

No, they looking for worms and they dig all around the yard, they go
methodically through the yard, 'Ding, ding, ding,' and when they finally hit one
and they go, 'Kkkkkku-kkkkkkee', and they pull the worm out and you see the
worm getting cut in half, and the worm is dying, the worm is jumping around
and the bird is just eating it, alive, you know? They create very bad karma. The
animals are almost predestined, by definition, to go down. They can't create a
good...they can't do a good thing. So buddhism people say, well wasn't that
unfair, you know, isn't that unjust? It's, it's the way it is.[laughs]

[student: [unclear] ]

Yeah, animal realm is pretty much a ticket down.

[student: It's better to be a pet...keep them from killing, like, anything and if,
you know...]

[student: But if you're a herbivore you don't.]

No, that's true...yeah, you don't collect the karma of killing, you know, at least
you don't collect the karma of killing.

[student, John Stilwell: My question was: How does volition be...come into play
with karma? Like our karma's brought us to where we are.]

It's the karma to have the volition to care about karma is what I'm saying.

[student, John Stilwell: Ah...oh.]

[laughs] [laughter]
[student: You still have a choice.]

[students: [unclear] ]

[student: If animals go to lower realm one day, it must be an opportunity for
them to create a good karma or circle out there.]

It's the only way.

[students: [unclear]...gotta go up...]

No, that's your...that's John, what John said about, you wear it out, by suffering
it wears it out, the power of it wears out. But even in hell they're struggling with
each other, they collect about a, a lot of bad deeds in hell. People murder each
other in hell every moment, so.

[student, John Stilwell:     So is volition different than karma or is it the same
thing?]

{O yohr}, we'll get there. [laughs] [laughter] No, it's good question, it is really
good question but I can't [unclear] about that. It is a good question and don't
stop asking questions but I'll just tell you it's coming.

[student: It's the chair.]

[laughter] No, it's very good, the stock hasn't come so it means that you were
sleeping. [laughs] I have to wake you up. Yeah?

[student: I was just ah,...]

Okay good, okay. Second principle, [laughter] second principle, {le, el che wa}
say {Le}[repeat], {el che wa}[repeat]. The effects of karma...the results are bigger
than the cause.

[student: Bigger?]

Yeah, results..

[students: Could you...could you break it down?]
Yeah. {Le} means "karma", {el} means "to increase".

[student: Create?]

Increase, get bigger. {Che wa} means "bigger", bigger and bigger. My, my
temple's name in New Jersey is {Rashi Ge Pel Eem}, {ge pel} means your virtue
gets bigger and bigger, {ge wa pel wa}.

[student: That like your [unclear].]

Yeah, it is. {Pel gay} means, {pel gay} means like, ah, what do you call it?
Prosperity, things getting bigger, wider...

[student, Nina Vicari: Multiplying.]

Very, very, very simple principle and you'll accept it, I think, the moment I say it.
I hope. I always give the example of a...one day there was a wind storm at our
temple and a tree fell down on the roof of the temple. And my lama said, "Oh,
you go up and here's a chain saw, you go up and cut it off, the top of the tree
down.", you know. And it was raining, and I got [unclear] in snow, so my lama
told me and I was really scared, I was truly very, very scared...and I went up
there and I'm...got my legs around the tree and I got this chain saw, and, and I
was very scared, my legs were like shaking and people were making fun of me,
you know? And a, and I thought, at that moment I thought, you know, we have
these big oak trees around our house and they, they come from, what, walnuts
you call them?

[student: Acorns.]

Acorns, yeah. And the squirrels come and [laughter]...

[students: [unclear]....cause and effect....palm trees from walnuts....[unclear] ]

[laughter] Sorry. Okay, I thought, you know, what if when this acorn fell down
here twenty years ago, I had taken that god damned acorn and thrown it on the
asphalt, on the street, you know? It would never have grown, you know? I was
just thinking that while I was cutting the tree, it occurred to me, if I had gotten a
hold of that acorn when it was big enough to handle and thrown it out on the
street I wouldn't be up in this god damned tree. [laughter] It occurred to me,
you know? And that's really true, it is true in the physical world, that the causes
are minuscule compared to the results...the causes of the human being are, are
one cell of sperm and one ce...egg, you know, or whatever. They're, they are,
they are cellular, they are tiny, tiny, tiny little causes and they create, you know,
fifty, sixty, seventy years of human being. Ah, the causes of a tree are, are, are
infinitely smaller than the tree...I mean if you weighed the mass, I don't know
what it would be, those oak trees are like fifty feet high, or forty feet high and
the acorn is, is, I don't know, a couple grams, you know. It's a physical principle
that the...all seeds are, are tiny compared to the results, and it's true in karma
also. It's true mentally also. A tiny bit of irritation, at a person at work, will
make you suffer for many hours in the future, and, and hard suffer, it's a, it's a
cruel, ah...

[student, Vilma Staiano: But then the good seeds are the same.]

Yeah, but the good seeds are vastly outnumbered. [laughs]

[silence] [end side one of tape]

[cut] [student: I mean, are we making a distinction here between the sort of
apparently distinctive cause of that tree that you're talking about that fell on the
roof, as opposed to the long stream of phenomena that produced that tree, in
other words, the tree that produced the acorn, if you had chopped that down
too, it wouldn't have fallen on the ground and then you wouldn't have had to
thrown it and then the acorn that produced that tree so if you went three trees
and threw the acorn...]

No and if I went back to a bad thought I had this afternoon, [cut] they'd say that
about, you know, liberation, you know, do it now or do it a million years from
now, you've got to do it sooner or later [laughs] you know. It's true, yeah...if
you don't do it now, it means you just have gotta do it later.

[student: So what's the logic then that goes into distinguishing between, you
know, the acorn that fell on the grass being the cause of that tree versus ten
acorns ago that a...]

Oh it is the, it is the direct, we call {neil study, prag rig}, second year, fourth
course, okay? Basic logic, it's about the third subject, okay? Yeah.

[student:   [unclear] I'm sorry, I don't want to side track you too much. I
understand the, I understand your example but it's still an analogy, I mean, you
know...]

I could give you a mental example, okay?

[student: Okay, that's good]

And it's very, very clear and applicable in your daily life, you know, let's say I
[cut] as vice president and I know in advance that since we are going to be peers,
or even that he will be my superior, that by the definition of a human being I
will, I will get jealousy towards him at some point, it will come. I know in
advance, I know in advance of him getting, I know in advance of suggesting him
for the position that I will be liable to have jealousy towards him. And if, and if
as the process of my substitution takes place, I actively watch my mind and don't
let the first thought come, don't let the first one come, you know, never let the
first one come, the rest will never come. It's true. Now there's a famous...you
know the eight verses, a famous {Kadampa}, the early hard core buddhists of
Tibet, beautiful buddhists, you know, the first...you guys are the {Kadampa}s of
America, right, okay...the {Kadampa}s of Tibet, who were really the greatest
practioners of buddhism because it was new for them, ah, you know, ah...they
said, what is it? It goes a, {dak ta shen na nevay shen, chel du dopa da dopa
gyur} something like that, it's not the correct...but it means the minute you have
a bad thought, the minute the first one starts, stop it. Do all you can do to stop it
because it's only gonna multiply later. If you stop the first one you'll never get
twenty others that will come from it.

[student: Okay, assuming that you, you know, have a thought that goes in a
particular direction and tends to, say, build, build speed, [unclear] like a
himalayan snowball down a hill, but, how does that relate to the idea that, you
know, if if, ah, for instance, you said if you are irritated with somebody at work
for a minute then, you know, in the future you'll suffer for hours or days?]

You have to study the Mind-Only school. And we will. And, and it's really, really
incredible because what you get a vision of, you know this is like {dokpa}, you
get this vision of a tiny little twisted seed in your mind causing your very mind
to be poisoned, and as it...you can even see it and feel it in your mind spreading
through your mind, twisting and poisoning your mind, a small genetic defect in
a chromosome, you know, causes this twisted, ugly baby, you know, and it's the
same in karma. A small, tiny defective thought, such as a moments hatred
towards someone at work, ah, grows, grows, grows, twists, twists, twists even if
you never have that thought again, karmically, through time, it grows and gets
uglier on itself, it twists, it expands...like a human body does.

[student: It continues to grow until it ripens?]

Oh yeah. All seeds...give me a seed that doesn't.

[student: Like everything else, right?]

Yeah.

[student, Fran Dayan: But you have to put it in water.]

Yeah, the conditions, no, and she's absolutely right...the conditions must be
present. One of the conditions is ignorance.

[student: Well, when you realize what you're doing and you stop it, then you're
cutting it at least.]

Well, what's interesting is that there's a big debate, you know, do certain kind of
boddhisattvas or arhats, do they remove the seeds of their bad karma?

[student: No.]

No, they make it impossible for them to flower.

[student: Wait a minute, arhats no, they have to, well...but they have to, they
eventually it'll all...]

Even the, even the seed will be destroyed. But, but the trick is, in the beginning,
is to make...it's like the seed is still there, you just don't put any water near it.
Never let water ne...get near it, never let sunlight get near it. Ignorance is water,
in fact, when ah...fourth chapter, third chapter [b: Abhidharmakosha], okay? It
describes ignorance as like water, that, that, then your bad deeds can flower.

[student, John Stilwell: I was wondering how you could purify somebody with a
bazillion lifetimes of stuff, you know? In just one lifetime, that's a...]

Yeah. Yeah.
[student: But there is a classic karmic seeds that will never come to fruition,
right? Which would be the bad, ah, karmic seeds of a buddha that have been
neutralized or purified, right?]

They don't exist any more.

[student: They don't exist any more?]

At the eighth level of the boddhisattvas levels they are destroyed.        {Arikte
bakchak}, especially the seed for ignorance, we'll talk about it.

[student: So then there's would be seeds that would never be...produce anything
because they were [unclear].]

They will actually be destroyed. Yeah. Okay. Say {le ma chepa} [repeat], {dang}
[repeat], {mi chepa} [repeat]. So remember to just keep that vision of a tiny
lousy...defect, twisting-growing, twisting-growing, twisting-growing, it hap...it's
true, it is true and it's true of any twisted thing you see, in nature, okay, from
one small defect in a, in a seed. Okay. {Le} means what?

[students: Karma.]

What is mommy, in tibetan usually?

[students: [unclear] ]

[unclear] okay?   {Chepa} means "did", past tense of to do, "did", did. {Dang}
means...

[student: And.]

"And". {Ma chepa}. {Ma} means what?

[student: Not.]

"Not". {Che} means "to touch, make contact", okay? {Che}. {Che} means when
two things touch or make contact. What do you guess it means? {Chepa}'s part
of that verb to make contact...it's also the past part of the verb, {du, du}. What
do you think it means? Uh uh ah ee ee ee ee {le ma che}...{le ma che}...
[student: If you, if you did not have the karma...]

Yeah, then {ma che}.

[student: Then it won't touch you.]

Yeah, the result cannot come to you. Okay? You will never meet up with the
result. It seems almost foolishly simple.

[student, John Stilwell: So {le} is karma, {ma} is not, {chepa} is did...]

This and means "then, and then" and then {mi te}, you'll never bump into that
result, that result will never come to you, impossible.

[student, John Stilwell: {Mi} is never?]

{Mi} means "not", {chepa} means "to [unclear]". Excuse me?

[student, John Stilwell: Both {ma} and {mi}? Mean not?]

Yeah, {Ma, mi, ni, neigh}, there are actually four negatives in the tibetan...which
you will never get to. [laughter] If you don't do it, you will never meet that
result. So don't go to work, hoping for that promotion, if you haven't done a
virtue because...simple...that's...don't expect a tantric result, don't expect to see
deities and go to some paradise before you die, if you, if you don't know, don't
do any of those three principle paths, forget it, impossible, according to the laws
of karma, impossible. Ye...how could it happen?

[student: They say the [unclear] at the beginning, the first priests and all
[unclear] believe in the karma and the [unclear] within the vinaya because it was
a kind of philosophy like from this point seems to me that leads you towards a,
you know a pac...being passive, like the indians who say, so what? You have the
result of thousands of life, we cannot change that so then, you know...]

I don't think it's true, I think the great buddhists of India, like king Asho, they
were social activists, I mean he built all the highways in India, I mean he took
buddhism to Sri Lanka, he took it to Thailand, distant people, I mean they were
not, you know, y'know, I hope nothing happens...it's not a...now-a-days, I'm a...I
agree very firmly that India is a, paralyzed, and they say that themselves. But
it's, I don't believe it's from any pure understanding of buddhist phil...any hindu
philosophy, it's just from something else, it's from some other karma. But it's not
from the teachings that they received, they don't teach you to just sit around and
let people suffer [unclear].

[student: It's very much into their culture.]

It is, no, it's, it's thick in their culture.

[student: [unclear] like in Mexico, like that, I mean [unclear].]

No, I know, it's worse [laughter]...but I...it's not the cause. I would not say that a
correct understanding of karma would make you anything less than a very
engaged, compassionate person...you wouldn't sit around, ah, like I did last
night, at a gala affair, indian diamond dealers on which they spent a half a million
dollars, while people in their country are starving and suffering, you know.
[unclear] Okay, ah, {le ma chepa dang ma chen}, so don't stand there and say,
"Oh, I hope this tree comes up, I hope this tree comes up!" and you didn't plant a
seed, you know? It's like, foolish. Don't expect anything good if you haven't
done anything. And on the other hand, ah, if you can at least once at work avoid
a bad thought that you almost were going to have...you know you almost
thought something bad about somebody and you caught yourself, you just, ah,
nullified the result, it will never come 'cause you didn't do it. It's nice, it's, it's a
nice thing. You know, I often-times during the day, I say, okay I had all day, first
half of the day I was angry. Like today. But at least, you know, I was able to cut
it off at twelve o'clock, okay, so from twelve to twelve thirty I, I didn't do
anything wrong to make a bad result [unclear].

[student: Like these two principles, going back to the same point as I was telling
you before, it seems to me that, that let's say someone doesn't have a job, right?
So he doesn't even look for a job because he says, that's my karma and if I don't
have the reason in the, in the past for me getting a better position, a job or some
money, I would not look at all, so it leads into being very passive.]

But shouldn't he rather go out and do some good deed so he can get a job
[unclear] later. The see...by the way, I mean one principle they were I didn't
write up here I guess, it's always later...right?    I mean, you don't plan
onna...there's always a time gap between the seed and the result, I don't know
why they didn't put that in these four principles. Nagarjuna says, a very
beautiful line in the [b: Letter to a Friend], {Shi ting}, he said, it's a very
unfortunate, that when you do a bad deed, you don't see a big cut open up on
your arm immediately as if a sword had just chopped your arm, somebody
ripped a hole in your arm, like, you squash a bug, it's very unfortunate, says
Nagarjuna, very bad luck, that as you crush the bug your own ribs don't start to
break. They will break in the future, they will be crushed...unfortunately there is
a time lapse. And that's why we're still here. You know you would never do a
bad deed if, if you started to lie to make money and suddenly the money
disappeared from your pockets. You know, if you start to lie and then suddenly
all the money you had in your pocket disappeared, then people would figure it
out. [laughter] People would stop lying, you know, people would really stop
lying. That's not the way it is, there's always a time, there's always a gap. That
gap is what makes us suffer, 'cause then you, you have trouble intellectually, you
have to tie the cause to the result and there's some empty space between there. It
would be very convenient if ah, you know, the moment you hit somebody on
the head, your own head hurts, as bad as it will, but that's not the way it works.
There is instant karma, and and, there's extraordinarily bad karma that can give
you almost instant results, ah, killing your father, killing your mother, stuff like
that. And there are ah, the opposite, which is extraordinary virtues in this life
can create a tantric result in later life and that's accepted in, in the scriptures.

[student, John Stilwell: Can you give us some examples of the good...I mean,
how to get good results?]

[laughter] Three principle paths. Three principle paths. Practice them well in this
period of your life and then the following period you can achieve ah, paradise in
this life. Okay. And if you don't, don't sit there waiting for paradise, 'cause it will
never come. [laughs] Your choice. Ah, if you don't do the karma, you will never
meet its result. If you don't do the karma, you'll never meet its result. And if
you don't make an active effort, you know, not even fifteen minutes a day to
write on your homework sheet, to, to get those three principle paths, then don't
blame all those teachers who flow to New York to give initiations 'cause nothing
happens when you give the practice, you know, that's your fault, that's your
problem. You have enough time to eat, right? And do the other thing. Alright,
say {le}, [repeat] {chepa}, [repeat] {chu}, [repeat] {mi tsowa}, [repeat] {le}, [repeat]
{chepa}, [repeat] {chu}, [repeat] {mi tsowa}, [repeat]. {Le} means what?

[students: Karma.]

What does {chepa} mean?

[student: Did.]
Yeah. Karma which is done. Karma which is done. {Chu tsowa} is a verb, it's an
idiom, take out this {mi} and {chu tsowa} by itself means "go, just go away".

[student, Vilma Staiano: Doesn't {chu}, {chu} means "dharma", no?]

No, that's the other {chu}, this is {chi}, you're talking about {chu}. You're not the
tibetan track so I won't yell at you. {Chu tsowa} means, {chu tsowa} means "just
disappear", {chi tsowa} means, a, I'll have to think of an example...a...it almost
means like rot away or...

[student: Evaporate?]

Evaporate, like that. If you, you know, have a box full of rice and you have a
bad mouse problem, {chu tsowa} after a while. It'll just on, almost on its own it'll
just disappear after a while. The cookies in our house tend to {chu tsowa}. {Mi
tsowa}, {mi} means what?

[students: Not]

It will not. If you do a karma, if you commit a karma, it must have a result, it
will never just go away, it won't get lost out there around Pluto where it got hit
by an asteroid [laughs] okay? Impossible. Okay? It will never just go away. It's
frightening, it's frightening, every little bad thought I had at work today, I can
count on a result, I can count on a result, sometimes I feel it the next moment, I
do something bad, I look at something I shouldn't have looked at, and almost
the same instant I'm aware, "Oh, shit! I just did another bad karma!" It will not
go away. I must experience that result.

[student: Even if you purify it?]

We're gettin' there. [laughs] [laughter]

[student: [unclear] working very hard tonight after we leave.]

No, it's, it's very weird, once you get good at this, then the minute you do a
minor bad deed...I'm not supposed to look at a lady, I'll look at a lady on a street
and at the same moment I'll feel the bad karma.

[student: Why not look? Doesn't it depend on what's in your head?]
[unclear]...yeah it does, but I'm saying with bad motivation.

[student: Oh, well, [unclear] ]

But what I'm saying is that, at, at that, if you get good at it and if you watch
yourself, you, you catch yourself the next millisecond and you, you're sadly
aware that you have just thrown a brick into the future, you know? And a,
[laughter] and you, you start to feel it, you start to sense it, you start to feel it as
a concrete thing that is...that you just created it, and you feel it and it's very hard
and it just went into the future, you know? [unclear] You start to sense it.

[student, Fran Dayan: Do you know what my definition of buddhism is?
Talking to yourself a lot.]

Oh yeah, no, by the way, when you start, I must warn you, okay? When you
start buddhist practice, I mean good buddhist practice, you, you start to a...things
get worse. [laughter] Because you are for the first time noticing what's going on.
Noticing what you've been doing all along but you didn't care about before and
that you just let happen before, it's disturbing, and a lot of people get upset or
they get sick or they go a little crazy or you know don...expect it it will come,
and don't get upset about being upset, okay? So expect it and you get depressed
the first...if your practice is going pretty good, at the beginning, you start to
think, "I'm a bad person, I'm not doing anything right, I have such bad
thoughts.". You're just watching, for the first time, the thoughts that you've had
all along.

[student: What did you did with that, that Michael?]

You have to not get too upset about it, yeah, I mean you have to say, "Okay, let
me take the worst ones and let me chip away, let me make some progress." you
know? And that you should be happy about, and take a lot of joy in that and it's
really powerful, it gives you great power, you know?

[student: But at...Michael also, you said at the beginning of the class, for instance,
it's so difficult to take birth as a human next time around for instance, on this
subject, okay? Isn't it also true, however, that if you take refuge properly, that
that's the reason you're taking refuge, is to keep yourself from lower births are
y...do you mean to say, even you do a great job and you take refuge, it's just so
incredible that you're gonna go down for a while anyway, and eventually you'll
come back up or is refuge really refuge, I mean like, you know.]

No, refuge is like a, a house...that protects you from the rain, right? And if you
never go to that house, no, it cannot do anything. The act of taking refuge
without understanding refuge is useless.

[student: No, I, I'm, when I say taking refuge I mean taking refuge, I don't mean
somebody who thinks they're taking refuge and they're not.]

Well sure, sure.

[student: But I'm saying is, isn't that the purpose of taking refuge, that no matter
how difficult it might be to take human birth next time around, if you, if you use
that fear to motivate you to learn how to properly take refuge then you should
also not, like we were saying before, not lay around and say everything is fate, I
can't do anything about it, you should realize that by doing that it'll actually
happen, right, isn't that the purpose.]

Sure, sure, sure.

[student: But if you only take refuge once a day, you know [unclear] ]

Well, the way that people take refuge, it's "Oh my god, I've gotta to do again.",
you know? We didn't...we'll talk about refuge, we'll get to it. Okay. First
chapter [b: Prajna Paramita], third course, {le chepa chu mi tsowa}, okay? Get
into that mode of, of, of believing and sensing that you, when you do something
wrong...and I'm not talking about killing people, the problem is that people think
that to do a bad karma you have to kill somebody...no, a little lie at work, ah,
taking something that wasn't quite given to you, cheating your landlord, you
know or slightly weaseling on your taxes or bluh-bluh-bluh, the things that we
really do do all the time, ah, it will not go away, it will, it, it must have a result, it
will definitely have a result. You did it and if you don't do some action to
remove it, it, it must come back to you, it must definitely come back to you,
don't think that any little bad thing you did today will not have a result, it will
have a result. And a bigger one. And a bad one, if it was a bad action. Okay,
have some cookies. [laughter] Have some.

[student, Vilma Staiano: Was this how to stop desire for future [unclear]?]

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it. It's a good point, I didn't really tie it together but
we'll talk...

[cut] [unclear] {mepay}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat], {mepay}
[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat]. See all these {nyepa}s? {Nyepa, nyepa, nyepa, nyepa,
nyepa, nyepa}. {Nyepa} means "bad thing".

[student: Bad thing?]

Bad thing. Problem with something, bad thing about something, disadvantage
of something.

[student: Why is it spelled n-g-e and then n-y in the same word?]

This one up here?

[student: Right.]

No, that's a different word. I'm only talking about the last word each time.

[student: Bad thing.]

Yeah. What are you gonna call it? The problem. These are the six problems of a
human life.

[student: Oh, this is a title.]

Yeah, six problems of human life. These are the six problems that all humans
have. {Nyepa} means, ah, "certainty", certainty. We had it before with {le nyepa},
that was the first principle of karma. {Nyepa} means "certainty". {Mepa} you
know. You guys know {me}, right? What did I say about all these 'm' words
[unclear]?

[students: Not.]

Not, not, there is no problem, {nyepa}, that there is no {mepay}, {nyepa} means
"certainty". The first problem of your life, the first suffering of a human
being...you don't have these sufferings of animals like you have to watch over
your shoulder all the time in case there's a bigger bird behind you, you know.
They do, they do and it's, it's a very horrible suffering of an animal, you know
little fish...why do fish run away from you and they, they spend their whole life
looking over their shoulder and the day that they don't they get eaten, okay?
Ah, you don't have that but we have all these. {Nyepa mepa nyepa} means there
is no certainty in life, anything can happen tonight.

[student, Vilma Staiano: {Mepay} means?]

"There is no".

[student, Vilma Staiano: There is no.]

Yeah. One of the problems of your life, and you may have noticed it, [laughs] is
that you can never tell what the hell's gonna happen next. [laughs] And it's true,
okay, there's no cer...you can't bet on anything. There is no certainty in life,
there is none. Especially if karma is true, and if your karmic pocket can have just
about anything in it, any terrible thing can happen to you, tonight...we don't
know, not sure, not sure about anything...except taxes and death, [unclear]?

[student: An awful lot about taxes lately, Michael, how does that [unclear]?]

[laughs] [laughter] No, I pay. [unclear] Okay, the second one is {lomba}, say
{lomba}[repeat], {mepay}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat], {lomba}[repeat], {mepay}
[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat]. Okay, what's {nyepa} mean?

[students: Bad thing.]

Bad thing. What's a better word for that? The problem. The problem that, there
is {mepa}.

[student: No.]

There is no {lomba}. {Lomba} means ah, "satisfaction". You are never satisfied.
You are never satisfied, it's a human suffering.

[student, John Stilwell: It's such a drag too.]

I know...I can remember, you know, when I got the job where I work.

[student: Mick Jagger, nineteen sixty-six.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got this job, they offered me seven dollars an hour to, to run
up and down to the jewelry district with jewels, and I was thrilled, you know.
And then, after a while they make you a supervisor...and, and then you want to
be manager, and then you want to be a director and then you want to be vice
president and then, you know, and then if they tell you, would you like to run
around 'n this jewelry bag for seven dollars, are you crazy, you know...you
haven't changed, much, about the same kind of person you were a few years
ago, but you'll never be satisfied now with that, you know, it's human nature,
you always want more. Always. Okay, number three. I've misspelled
this...okay, I've fixed that. And {lu}, okay, please say {lu}, [repeat] {nyang nay}
[repeat], {nyang do}[repeat], {dorway}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat]. {Lu} means...do
you know what {lu} means? Or {ku}?

[student: Body?]

Yeah, body. We had it in t' bodies of the Buddha, we had {ku}. This is {lu}, it's the
same thing. {Lu} means "body". {Nyang nya, nyang do}, we had that, in the
definition of samsara. Remember?

[students: Again and again. Over and over.]

[unclear] Over and over, yeah. Over and over, we had that in the definition of
sa...samsara. {Nyang nya nyang do, dorwa}, {dorwa} means "to discard, to
throw off, shed", {nyepa} means "problem". What does it mean, Nan? How do
you pronounce it? I mean, how do you translate it from the back?

[student, Nan: Ah, the problem of discarding over and over again the body?]

Yeah, okay? The problem that you have to again and again die. Over and over
and over and over.

[student: But that's like [unclear] a human existence.]

Right, that's true. But this is listed in the, in the six [unclear]. You have to keep
shucking off bodies. You, you can only ah, I mean it only has meaning...this is
difficult, the first two have immediate meaning to you, and to me. You know I
know that a, nothing in my life is certain, I know that I'm not satisfied, ever, I
never get enough. But, this one is hard because we don't really accept the future
life, it's not in your culture, to accept the future life. And it's hard...but if your
mind has no beginning, then how many bodies have you shucked off?
Countless, I mean you could pile them up. I mean you could pile them as high as
Mount Everest, dead bodies, rotting bodies, okay? Bodies of John Stilwell, since
oh, couple hundred years, okay? No longer, right?

[student: Millennia.]

[unclear] Yeah, I mean no, the pile would be bigger than the planet. I mean it
would reach the sun...you know, the pile of dead bodies.

[student, John Stilwell: Then you get into this existential question of, are they
everybody elses bodies?]

[student: Michael, what is that, the whole meaning of the number three?]

Number three, the, the third problem of our life is that we have to keep giving
up this body again and again, it means we have to die again and again. Then we
have to go find a new body. All the bodies that [unclear] ever had, if you make a
big pile it would be bigger than a, any mountain. You had many bodies before,
many bodies like this...and you have each one you have to leave, you have to
give up and you have to go find another one.

[student: Y'know, discussing it in this way, the problem of a, having to give up
bodies over and over again, it seems that, that it, it's, it implies that you don't
have to do that, you know, that it's possible to have a permanent body.]

Sure.

[student: Okay, now, that's something that a, you know, a lot of people don't
seem to get, you know, at least in this culture anyway, y'know, is, is that
something that's implied in, in asia, that people just know that that's the case and
we just haven't gone around to doing that or...]

No, not at all.

[student: ...because it doesn't say, I don't see the big news or the big a, list that
including something that says, y'know, you don't have to a [unclear], you can
have a permanent body, you never see it listed that way.]

It's implied, it's implied when you're, when you're [unclear].

[student: [unclear] still don't sorta get that, you know that the object is, is that
you, you, that there's a state, there's this deathless state that is your more natural
state than this one even.]

[student: But it's not static, right? It's constant, the belief in the Buddha?]

He does have a body, the Buddha's body changes from [unclear] as, as ours
does...but it doesn't suffer.

[student: But it doesn't change in the same way.]

No, it has no suffering, it doesn't age. Okay. Number four. Please say {yang
yang}[repeat], {ning sum}[repeat], {tsorway}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat]. What
does {yang yang} mean? It's an abbreviation for another phrase.

[students: {yang day yang day}]

Yeah, okay? It's the short form of {yang nya yang du}, okay?              {Yang yang}
comes from {yang nya yang du}. {Yang yang} means what?

[students: Over and over.]

Yeah, and in colloquial tibetan you say [unclear], over and over, {yang yang}.
{Ning sum} is an ancient word, it comes a lot in the [b: Abhidharma], ah...

[student: Essence?]

No, it's not that at all, it's the border between...birth and, death. {Ning sum
jorwa} means "to close the border". Which means to take birth again...and if you
look it up in the dictionary you'll spend a few months.

[student: Border between?]

Literally it means to join the border...of...between birth and death, but what it
means, the meaning of the phrase is to take birth. To cross across that border
one more time. Okay? To cross that border one more time, into life.

[student, John Stilwell:     [unclear] {Ning sum} means crossing border, and
{jorway}'s [unclear]?]

[unclear] like the, the border between India and China is called a {tsong}. {Ning
sum jorwa} means to...you can think of it as crossing the border. It's actually
connecting the...reconnecting into a new life.

[student, John Stilwell: {Jorway} is closing?]

{Jorwa} means "to join" [unclear] it's a...and it came into english as yoke, that
which joins the, the animal to the cart. Yoga means a joining, okay?

[student: And {ning}?]

It's...doesn't have clear meaning here, it's related to words for heart but it's not
that means here. So what is that, the problem of?

[student: Having to be born again?]

Yeah, having to be born again, again. So number three is, the problem that you
have to keep dumping bodies over and over again, and then number four is you
have to keep being born again.

[student, John Stilwell: How are those two different?]

The difference between death and birth, I guess. The drag of dying and the drag
of being born. [laughs]

[student: You have to give up your body that you're used to and then y'gotta
find another one with a...]

It's like having your car towed away and then you buy a new one, [unclear] she
knows very well. [laughs] Huh?

[student: What's {jorwa}?]

{Jorwa} means "to join"...and it comes from sanskrit words for yo...[unclear], and
that the english word for yoke [unclear] to join two things. Okay. Say {yang
yang}[repeat], {toe mem do}[repeat], {gyir way}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat] I like
this one. What's {yang yang} mean?

[students: Over and over]

Okay.    You know {toe}?      {Toe wa} means "high", high.      {Mem} means the
opposite, low. What's {tek mem}? Robert, you know? {Tek mem}.

[student: {Tek mem}?]

Yeah, this is {hina} in sanskrit, {hina}.

[student: Lesser? ]

Yeah, hinyana. {Mem} is the, is this, is the tibetan word that they use in the word
hinyana, that's not what it means here, it just means low here. The word for
hinyana in, in, in tibetan is...

[student: Cause they call it low vehicle or something?]

Yeah, the lower vehicle...the inferior.

[student: Course hinyanas don't refer [unclear], in that way, do they?]

Well no, but a...I'll tell you something now, I mean, that the tibetans study
hinyana better than any hinyanaist do. You know, where I learned theravada
and go to Tibet, we spend a, I spent ten years on {Abhidharma}, that's the lowest
[unclear] school, it's their...hinyana schools are profound, they are very, very
high schools...if you could reach a hinyana school, you'd be set, okay? We're
below, we're somewhere down...

[student: We shouldn't call them that then, doesn't seem [unclear]. ]

Not really, but, but compared to the...what you could be is {hina}, but, but
compared to us it's {maha}, okay?

[student: But doesn't it just mean lesser in the sense that your scope is, is
[unclear] ]

That's it, it's for restricted scope, you're watching out for yourself, which is not a
bad thing, you will never lose that scope...right? You don't give up the low..the
lesser scope, you just build on it. But you still have that spectrum where you're
watching for yourself too, okay. {Nyung nyung toe mem do, gyir wa}, {gyir wa}
means "to become". And {nyepa} means "problem".

[student: And {do}? {Toe mem do}?]
To, t-o.

[student: Also?]

No, tee-oh. Think about it and see if you can guess, Stilwell.

[student: The problem of]

No, no, let'im, let'im, let him guess, let him guess! [laughter] No, you probably
know it or something, all right teach it, Johnson, try it...guess! I mean.

[student, John Stilwell: Probably become, oh...problem...the problem that things,
well vernacular. ]

Yeah, you're right.

[student, John Stilwell: The problem that, that after high comes low, what it... ]

Basically, yeah. The problem of a, in this life you keep going up and down. One
moment you're on top, the next moment you're on the bottom.

[student, Vilma Staiano: This is the eight worldly thoughts? Next to the eight
worldly thoughts then?]

Not really, not really.

[student, Vilma Staiano: Well what does that, what does that mean then?]

It's a different problem...you get a high position in, in the city government and
then the, the, the next year they change mayors and you're dumped out and
you're out looking for a job. And you join a corporation and you shoot up to the
top and your company that's a...shares are going like crazy and then they a, cut
back and a competitor knocks you off and a, your company is bankrupt. If you
work in business, I mean if you work in a corporations, if you work in you
know, competitive business for a while, I mean you notice that it, it's just a big
cycle, you know, companies have gone out of business and going up and then
going down and then going up and then going down and then going up, going
down, you know...while you're on the up you always think you're a genius and
on the way down you always think somebody else caused you to do that,
[laughs] you know?        It's funny. Na...yeah always, your life is just one
rollercoaster, that's number five, is the rollercoaster.

[student: This is, is superset of the three sufferings [unclear]? ]

There are the three sufferings, the five sufferings, the eight sufferings, the six
sufferings...in the [b: Lam Rim Chenmo]. In this book he chooses the six and he
explains why, you know. [unclear] Number six, last one, then you can go home,
almost...say {drok}[repeat], {mepay}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat], {drok}[repeat],
{mepay}[repeat], {nyepa}[repeat]. {Drok} means "friend", {dro po}...friend. In
tibetan the word {dropo} means "friend...companion", I think companion may be
better here, companion. {Mepay} you know.

[students: Not...not...there is none...there is no?, there is none...]

So what's it mean? Read it backwards, that's the tibetan [unclear].

[student: The problem is that there are no friends, no companions.]

Yeah, no companions.

[student: The problem is that you're alone, in other words.]

No one can go with you. No one can go through this life with you, forget it,
yeah, you're on your own. One of the sufferings of a human life is that you're on
your own, that no one can accompany you. Especially, when in reference to
death, okay? You're totally alone forget, you know, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife,
husband, friend, son daughter, parents...no such thing, I mean, the basic truth is
that you're on your own.

[student: Even for people they're not parenting ah, together they have a couple
of friends and are married and they're seem very stable and that.]

There will come the day, if they live that long, or if th...or if they die in a nice
way, that you know, one will be holding onto the other one's hand in the
hospital bed and the other will go by himself, y'know. It's, it's that bad and you
can be holding his hand and he will go, you know...we have it, we saw it the
other day. So's [unclear] can be touching him, you can be holding his arm, you
know, "Don't go! Don't go!", he goes...and you're alone.
[student, John Stilwell: Is the point of this is that you go through life alone or
that you die alone?]

Well you know that sometimes people, for a brief period in their life, are
together and they have apparently a companion, but the truth is you don't have
a companion.

[student: That's in all the six realms, right?]

Yeah, I mean, obviously a lot of these are...obviously, I guess, all of them apply.
[unclear] but he's just using it as [unclear]. Last thing, one sentence and then you
go. By the way, this is supposed to...make you realize that in your next life, no
matter how, groovy things are, they're no good, okay? [laughs] Still gonna have
these six, even if you manage to pull off a human birth, it's very difficult. My,
my lama says it's like winning the lottery...ah, y'still have these problems and
when you get there, after winning the lottery...

[student, John Stilwell: Wasn't such a great prize.]

[laughs] You still have those six to look forward to.

[silence]

You might end up learning tibetan after all. [laughs] It's a secret plot. You
already know a lot, you're gonna learn more. Okay, please say {nyin sen}
[repeat], {kundu}[repeat], {karpa}[repeat], {tun ngel lo}[repeat], {tu nga}[repeat],
{de che}[repeat], {nyin jun}[repeat], {kay pa}[repeat], {lak}[repeat]. Okay, {nyen}
means {nyemmo} which means "day", day, d-a-y, day.

[student: Is that related to {nyimo}, like sun?]

Yeah. Related to the word sun, {nimo}. {Nyen} means "day", what do you guess
{sen} means?

[students: Night.]

Night. You know {kun}, I think. {Kun}...{kun ga}, that word {kun ga}? {Kun}
means "all", {kun do} means "at all". {Kun do} means "at all", a-l-l.

[student: [unclear] ]
It's a plural, those...there's a couple words for {kun}, {t' tam jen} means "all", {tam
lam} means "all". [unclear] {Karpa} do you know? {Karpa}? There's a book
coming out {tarpa}, why did they choose that? {Mok shah} in sanskrit. [unclear]
Freedom... liberation...freedom. You know {du nga}, that was one of the three
qualities of a good student.

[student, Vilma Staiano: Peaceful?]

Naaaaah.

[student, Vilma Staiano: No, {nyer}, wasn't {nyer} peaceful?]

Oh, that was {nyer shi}, different spelling. You're right, I take it back.

[student: Striving high.]

Yeah, striving for higher things, okay. So {du ngeh} means "to strive". Strive, to
aspire...that was the third quality of a good student...all right? {Lok}, is the same
as {sem}...

[students: Mind. Mind.]

Mind. Mind, exactly the same, mind.

[student: Exactly the same?]

Pretty m...except in the [b: Abhidharma], second chapter. {Hap en chewy}

[student: So {dun} is to aspire? Or {du nger}?]

{Du nger} is an idiom meaning "to aspire". {Jun nga} means "when it happens",
when it happens. {Nga} means "when", {jun} means "it happens". {Day tzay}
means "at that time", {day tzay} means "at that time"...if you don't know {en en
gyen} you're kicked out of the class.

[students: Renunciation.]

Renunciation, okay, {Nyen gyen}, renunciation. First of three principle paths,
first of the three realizations which, if you have, everything...good thing you do
becomes...leads you to nirvana. {Nyen ja}. Tired of life, okay? If you don't have
it now, life will give it to you, it's very convenient. [laughs] [laughter] No, life,
ah, lamas always say life is very...it's lucky that life will always reveal its true
nature to you, it will make you sick, sooner or later, you think it's nice now, don't
worry, hang in there, it'll get lousy later. [laughs][laughter] {Nyen jun, kye pa},
develop...developed, past tense, developed. Developed. {Lok} means, "it is", it is.
That's a lot, by the way, just for you, you know, people like Robin, that's a lot in
{ta chi la} or {rin chin la} or

[student: Michael-la]

Yeah, that's the respectful, your, your -isness, okay? [laughs] It's kind of cute. La.

[student: It's never clear to me when I'm supposed to [unclear].]

You all look at that for one minute, and then I'm gonna ask somebody to
translate it, okay? I'm going to ask somebody to guess the translation. Look at
it for one minute quietly. Try to get the whole thing in your mind before you
say it. Ariel.

[student, Ariel: The mind that a, that strives day and night to achieve liber...to, to
attain liberation, aspires day and night to attain liberation has, has developed
renunciation, true renunciation.]

Yeah, yeah. This is the answer to the question, which is a lot of tibetan texts will
cover when they're describing a new mental attitude, they'll say, how do you
know when you've got it? You know, what's the...it's a difficult word in tib...in
english to, I mean in tibetan to translate. What's the point at which you can say, I
have renunciation? What's the {tsay}, the tibetan {tsay}, in sanskrit {muh}, like
meter, what is the measure, what's that line at where you cross that line you say,
now I have renunciation, I know I got renunciation now. Okay? Renunciation
has been developed at the point when the state of mind where you want
freedom day and night all the time has, has finally occurred. If you get that state
of mind, where all you can think about day and night is getting out of samsara,
well then you have renunciation. That's {Je Tsongkhapa}'s definition.

[student: Is it different to think like, I was in [unclear] day and night towards
freedom attain renunciation?]

That's it. Is renunciation.
[student: Is renunciation.]

Then you have gotten renunciation.             What, what is freedom?         What's the
opposite of samsa...what is samsara?

[student: Circle, circle of repeating.]

Come on, we want the real definition.

[student: The, is the, when your, when your heaps are [unclear] terminated and
don't allow you to perceive...]

This chair, I've got to fix it. Nitia, after class, can you fix this chair?

[student, Nitia: Yeah.]

I still have that little wrench...yeah, yeah, yeah, he remembers, he worked on it.
It's a weird thing...it's a weird thing...only an italian architect could fix this shit.
[laughs] [laughter] Ah, {karpa}, freedom, is what? The opposite of samsara, so
what's samsara? Kelly, Kelly, Mr. Kelly, what is samsara?

[student, Kelly: The opposite of freedom?]

C'mon! By the way, that's legal in debating, you can do this.

[student, Kelly: You want the definition?]

Yeah, definition.

[student, Kelly: Ahh, samsara is a, the condition of having to take on over and
over again the stream of [unclear] heaps, that you're forced to take on as a
normal suffering being.]

Yeah, okay. So what would freedom be?

[student, Kelly: Freedom would be not having to take on the a, the, that a,
stream of [unclear] heaps.]

Yeah, so I don't think, y'know, you don't have to be, it doesn't imply that you
have to be...depressed about it, I mean you have to sort of aspire towards a
body which does not have pain any more, and aspire towards a state of mind
and a world and a being in which your mind is pure and happy, you know...and
you're no longer in a world where, you know, you get the job, you go out, then
you get to go down, then you lose the job, [unclear] the other one, you get
healthy then you get sick and then you get better again then you get sick again
and, you know, ah...it can be a happy thing, I mean it can be a positive thing,
where you're really looking forward to kind of mind which no longer hates
anybody, and which is only happy with other people and, and the kind of body
that doesn't have that kind of stuff anymore.

[student: Somebody asked the Dalai Lama what the first thought, what first, the
first thought that came into his mind upon waking every morning, he said,
happy day.]

[laughs] Yeah, if you really...we'll get into boddhichitta next, by the way, next
class, and, and that's the, I mean that's that vision of really wanting everyone
around you to be happy, and it's really nice, it's really a nice state of mind. Okay.

[student: Michael, the way you a, you say it it seems to negate the life period.
Don't you mean to negate impure life?]

That's what I said, yeah.

[student: No, you said life oh, life this, and life is [unclear].]

Life is as you know it right now.

[student: Yeah, but I mean...]

Right?

[student: If you don't make that distinction, a lot of people have misinterpreted
buddhism over the years to mean something that negates life altogether, you
know...]

No, of course not.

[student: Nothingness and so on.]
That's why we did the lectures [unclear].

[student: Oh no holes again!]

So, so if somebody would volunteer to make the holes before class...no, I asked,
actually, I'm trying to buy this paper that has holes in it already so we [unclear]
and I asked somebody to get that kind of paper and she said, no, I'll just punch
'em for you, and I said, nurrrrrrr.

[student, John Stilwell: So renunciation is the kind of a downer you go through
until you develop boddhichitta.]

Which is a real high. I mean to really wish well of everyone around you, that's
pretty nice.

[student, John Stilwell: So it just is, I mean just as a downer where you develop
renunciation [unclear].]

Okay, Nitia's doing the chairs...

[silence]
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